A middle schooler from Rockville Centre on Long Island who once hated reading just won one of the biggest student journalism prizes in the country for talking about exactly that struggle. Cora Walsh's podcast, Dyslexia and Mee, took home the middle-school grand prize in the 2026 NPR Student Podcast Challenge, selected from nearly 1,500 submissions to tell her own story of spending almost five years waiting for the correct diagnosis.
Walsh's win is notable given the scale of the competition she entered. According to NPR, this year's challenge drew nearly 1,500 entries from 42 states and the District of Columbia, a scope confirmed by KGOU. Walsh, who has dyslexia, built the podcast around her own long road to understanding why reading felt so hard for so long.
For years, that road was frustrating. NPR's reporting lays out how Walsh struggled with reading well before anyone could tell her family why, and it took nearly five years before she received the correct diagnosis. She has since spent two years in tutoring aimed specifically at dyslexia, including sessions where she practices sounding out words over Zoom with her tutor.
A Diagnosis Gap That's Bigger Than One Student
Walsh's experience lines up with a documented pattern in how dyslexia gets caught, or doesn't, in American schools. Research from the Yale Center for Dyslexia and Creativity indicates dyslexia affects roughly 20 percent of the U.S. population, or about 1 in 5 children, and accounts for 80 to 90 percent of all diagnosed learning disabilities in schools, according to the Yale Center for Dyslexia and Creativity. Yet the same center's research shows public school identification rates average only 0 to 4 percent of enrolled students, a gap tied to the absence of universal early screening.
There's also a documented pattern in who gets flagged for evaluation in the first place. A study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, cited by Treetop ABA Therapy, found dyslexia affects males and females at roughly equal rates, but boys are significantly more likely than girls to be referred by teachers for formal diagnostic evaluations. Genetic research compiled by the Yale Center for Dyslexia and Creativity also notes that a child has a 40 to 60 percent chance of developing dyslexia if at least one parent has the condition.
Those statistics sit against a broader national backdrop of reading struggles. Results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress show nationwide reading scores for fourth and eighth graders dropped five points between 2019 and 2024, with 40 percent of fourth graders performing below basic reading levels in 2024, per Reading Universe.
New York Moves to Close the Screening Gap
New York has recently taken steps aimed at the exact delay Walsh experienced. In December 2025, Governor Kathy Hochul signed legislation establishing a Center for Dyslexia and Dysgraphia within the State Education Department, according to the New York State Executive Chamber. The law sets universal screening standards for grades K through 5; the center will establish evidence-based interventions and teacher training.
A separate measure addresses the cost side of diagnosis. Under New York's Dyslexia Diagnosis Access Act, enacted in December 2024, private health insurance policies operating in the state are now required to cover comprehensive neuropsychological examinations for diagnosing dyslexia and related learning differences, according to Legal Services of Long Island. New York City has also moved on the issue institutionally: in July 2023, the city enacted legislation mandating dyslexia screenings and evidence-based reading interventions inside correctional facilities, per the Office of the Public Advocate for the City of New York.
Walsh's tutoring has focused specifically on dyslexia.
From Hating Books to Checking Out the Sequel
The payoff for Walsh has been tangible. She has read the first book in the Hunger Games series for fun and has since checked out the second from the library, a shift she credits to her tutoring. “I think I'm a better reader now, and I enjoy it a lot more,” Walsh said.
Her mother, Emily Johnson, pointed to the effort behind that turnaround. “This is a kid that works so hard and has such a good attitude,” Johnson said. Walsh herself described the win in simple terms: “I feel really excited,” she said while speaking about her victory.
Walsh hopes the podcast makes dyslexia feel less scary for listeners and hopes it reaches younger students still figuring out their own learning styles. Her advice to them echoes the persistence that got her here: “Always try your hardest, and don't sell yourself short.” She has her sights set on college and a career beyond the podcast, planning to attend Princeton and major in neuroscience on her way to becoming a doctor.
